Equipment:

The basic equipment you need is a tape recorder with an exterior microphone and a camera. A good flashlight is a must and a positive attitude.

I suggest investing in some other devices if you are serious about ghost hunting. A non contact thermal scanner, a tri field meter, an electromagnetic field reader and some motion detectors. A camcorder with built in night vision and a monitor. They are a bit expensive but if your serious about ghosts, it's a good investment.

Train your team members on how to use the equipment and give each one a specific task. You'll do more juggling than ghost hunting if you try to use all this equipment by yourself. I have one person taking temperature readings and another using the E.M.F. meter. I generally run the camcorder and hold a small 4 inch monitor so everyone can see the same thing that I do. I also have someone take still photos and someone documents every move we make on specially designed forms.

To get EVP or voice recordings, I walk around asking questions to the ghosts. You have to talk to them to get a response back. You can talk amongst yourselves but don't whisper. You might mistake it for a ghost voice and find it was you. Its a good idea to have a computer program to edit your voices you get on tape. Cool edit is a good windows formatted program and for a Mac, I use soundmaker. These assist in filtering out background noise and enhance the voices so you can hear them better.

As I walk around with the camcorder, I have someone with a camera follow me and when we see orbs on the monitor, we take still photos and capture the orbs on film. When you have the same orbs on tape as you do on film, this rules out the dust or water spots on the lens theory. Having a monitor is great fun for the home owner or anyone who lets you do an investigation somewhere. Its not fun for them when you say your seeing all kinds of thing in the camera and they can't see it too. I make it a priority to share with them the experience so if I need to come back to follow up on something, they are more than willing to let me come back.

If someone tells me that a certain room or place has a lot of activity, I set up some motion detectors. I use some battery operated ones from Radioshack. I sit and record the area with the camcorder and if I turn it off for a moment, the motion detectors will sound if anything moves in the room. Orbs do set these off even when you can't see them.

Attitude:

When I go to a location to do an investigation, I keep a positive attitude that I will have a Successful night. I act professional and treat the ghosts with respect. If you go and play around all night, you won'thave much luck. We still have fun when we go out, but just show some respect and dignity to the ghosts. They were people too. They still have feelings and they can tell if your serious or not. I found that if they are convinced that you are genuine, they are more likely to talk to you. And they too have a sense of humor also.

Follow up:

After someone has been so kind as to let me into their home to do an investigation, I always try to follow up with them and share my findings. I don't think calling them a week later and saying " yes, you have ghosts. See ya next time" is a professional way of doing business. I explain that after I have gone through all the tapes and analyzed all the data, I will send them a report of all my findings. If they want to make a donation to cover the cost of the tape and my time, I will give them a video tape of the images and an audio tape of the voices provided I get any. This lets them feel good about the experience and they will welcome you back the next time you call.